Our Eroticon 2013 weekend: Saturday

We were at the venue far to early and had to wait outside until the doors officially opened. Rose, Jilly Boyd and Innocent Loverboy and John D was there waiting with us. Once we were allowed to go in and register, we received our goodie bags and walked through to the general area to have some tea, coffee and cookies. Here I met more people: Rachel Kincaid, Plumptious Pea and Miss Lily Hastings.

Opening plenary of Eroticon 2013
After the initial welcoming word, Ruby handed the microphone to Brook: XES: we can’t go backwards. The talk was mainly about safe sex and the history of it. Somehow I felt as if I was back in a high school class for sex education. I totally understand the importance of safe sex, but I don’t feel that this talk should have been held for the opening plenary of a sex bloggers conference. The only possible tip that came from this was to remember that characters in erotic fiction should wear condoms too in certain situations.

Day 1: Session 1: Myth busting: the submissive woman by Molly Moore
I just had to go to this session. I wanted to see Molly speak and of course the subject is close to my heart. I wanted to see whether there was something I could contribute, but Molly had absolutely everything covered. Myths that were discussed were:
* Submissive women are weak
* Submissive women are passive sexually
* You are submissive because of past abuse/trauma
* All submissive women are masochists
* Submissive women are all bisexual / poly / in an open relationship / promiscuous / sub to everyone

There is no perfect sub. There is no one size fits all, no guide as to how to be a sub. There is a huge variety to different kinds of subs. Accepting your own submission comes with its own challenges. Communication in any relationship is very important and possibly more so in a D/s relationship. Communicating with your Dom/Master and telling Him what you like, what you would want… that is NOT topping from the bottom. That is communicating!

The issues of safe words and contracts came up too. Safe words is another form of communication. Saying NO during a session, or stop, is not going to work. You should use a word that you won’t use otherwise or use the traffic light method. A safe word can also be used when something else is bothering you, such as a cramp in your leg or a bright light in your eyes. Using a safe word is not always about stopping a session. The vanilla community seems to believe that there is a contract for every D/s relationship. Having a contract is not something that is necessary, but if a couple wants it, it’s their choice. Such a contract is negotiated by both and not simply a list of the Dom’s demands.

Molly concluded with a word cloud that she has made after many submissives sent her the five words that describe their own submission. Words that sprang out from the word cloud were: trust, love, freedom, devotion, complete, acceptance, release and pride.

A lovely session and a beautiful and clear presentation by Molly.

Day 1: Session 2: Editing by Cressida Downing
The point of editing is to make something beautiful of your work. This statement immediately had my attention and Cressida Downing definitely managed to keep my attention for the entirety of her session. She covered a number of subjects regarding editing:
* The different sorts of editing
* What’s going to make your story different?
* The use of euphemisms and making sure that it fits your setting
* What to do when you decide to go with self-publishing
* What is essential when you want to self-publish your book
* Who to get help from when you think your story is ready for publishing
* What’s a reasonable price to pay for editing
* How to pick an professional editor
* First write the entire book / novel / short story before you start editing
* When do you stop editing.

And one final piece of advice: time spent editing is not time wasting. Consider one-off editorial advice to help you take your writing forward.

Day 1: Session 3: Creative writing by Remittance Girl
Remittance Girl is a wonderful speaker and was another who kept my attention from the beginning of her session right up to the end.

Sex has nothing to do with love. This was one of the first things said in her session. She spoke about eroticism and romanticism. So many things have been said and my head was really buzzing afterward. Some quotes from the session (thanks to people who live-tweeted the session):
* “We want to fuck much more than we want to have babes”
* ‘The minute you form a love bond, you’re very vulnerable’.
* ‘You start to wonder if its the sex or the materialism that’s getting ppl off’.
* ’50 shades not porn because it does not work’
* erotica characters must be more than just fuckers, need to be interesting fuckers.
* ‘our erotic desires can turn us into base, evil, treacherous assholes’

And some more tips from Remittance Girl:
* Think realistically. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, things get in the way. Let them!
* When you write erotic fiction, be honest. Really honest. Tell the truth and do not make a pretty package of it. The reader can better identify with honesty and humanity.
* Sex + sexual desire – write as it is, because this is an important engine to our lives.

I wish Remittance Girl’s session could have gone on for at least double the time she had. It was wonderful listening to her!

Day 1: Session 4: Pitching to publishers by Hazel Cushion
There were definitely some tips in this session that can be used when pitching to any publisher, but in the end I was a bit irritated because Hazel was only promoting Xcite books and not generally talking about how you should pitch to publishers. Do not get me wrong, I totally understood that she had to promote Xcite books too, but it was just a bit too much of it. Since the session was called ‘Pitching to publishers’ I expected to get general guidelines as to how one should pitch to publishers. It might have been better if there were more than only one publishing house to host this session. Nevertheless, I have gained enough tips from this session to pitch to any publisher out there.

Day 1: Session 5: Self publishing 1: Getting started when you do it alone by M.K. Elliott and Guy New York
Unfortunately there were technical problems which meant that M.K. Elliott had to run this session alone. She made a lovely job of it, telling people what is important when they decide to self-publish their books. Especially the pricing with books in relation with the number of words used was quite an eye-opener. Some tips during this session were:
* Work with a traditional publisher first so you know whether your work is up to standard to be published;
* Want to edit your work online? Use autocrit.com
* Do not do your own cover art, but if you do, keep it simple.
* Create a multi-layer pricing system
* Promote your books on the social media
* Create an author page on Facebook and list your author page as your job on your personal info

Ruby concluded day 1 with this statement: We as sex bloggers should take ourselves seriously and we should push ourselves forward. If we do not do it, no one else will.